No More Free Rides

Starting today and going forward, the only way you can get one of my books free is to pirate it or go to a library. But it’s not about greed. It’s about commitment.

I didn’t charge for my first few books because I wasn’t confident in their quality. Putting them up for free made it easy for me. If people didn’t like it, I could say to myself, “Well, at least they didn’t get ripped off.”

The problem is that if a book stinks, the reader is still ripped off even if the book is free. If a person sees your book cover, becomes intrigued, gets hyped with anticipation, downloads the thing, and invests the reading time, he or she has been ripped off by an inferior product even if it was free.

Putting some of my books up for no charge wasn’t giving the reader a free ride — it was giving myself a free ride. If I charge for my books it’s a message to myself that says, “Mitchell, you owe the public a superior product, one that’s worth the reader’s investment of time and money.”

I took a step back and realized that my stuff is good — really good — and that I should stand behind it unequivocally. And from now on I am.

As they used to say back in the ’70s, “Ass, cash, or grass — nobody rides for free.” Especially me.

A blend of fact and fable, the practical and the esoteric, ‘Wisdom of the Raven’ instructs the reader in the spiritual underpinnings of Cabal Fang Martial Arts. Learn the basics of the Three Sisters — contemplation, meditation, and prayer — and how they come together to inform the mystic experience.

A seamless blend of the ancient and the modern, the physical and the internal, Cabal Fang has one foot apiece in the middle ages and the new millennium. Get a glimpse of what is at once a modern self defense method, a strenuous fitness regimen, and a spiritual framework drawing upon the Western esoteric tradition. For all fitness and experience levels — but not the faint of heart.

Ergie is a high-school slacker with too few friends, so when he meets Zack he welcomes the friendship. But he soon discovers that Zack isn’t what he seems, his parents have a hidden past, and everyone he loves is threatened by a race of ancient creatures known as ghilan. Can Ergie find the truth, and if he does, will he have the courage to do what he knows is right?

Harold has lost his job, divorce is on the horizon, a religious cult believes he’s a prophet, and he’s being stalked by an eerie motorcycle club and its mute, wild-haired mascot named Gator. His skeptical wife Bonnie is fighting to free him from the strange world into which he has fallen while Harold struggles with bizarre and unusual revelations. Is he really a prophet with miraculous powers?

2 responses to “No More Free Rides”

Thanks Mark! My next book may be of interest to you. “The Calisthenics Codex” will be an encyclopedia of over 50 calisthenics, photo illustrated, with workout ideas and plans from basic to advanced. Keep an eye out.